as long as ive been in and as well as the army has treated me, that will always be the case. if you do decide to join the military, take someone with you who can help explain what the contract says. like the mandatory 8 yrs that the army locks you in with. it may say 5 yrs active duty on the front but on the back it says that you will do another 3 inactive.


and holy crap hardcorp that was long.

 

[quote]ORIGINAL: woodyracing

just make sure you know the military does whats best for them as a whole when deciding what it is you do
as has been stated they will do pretty much anything to get you to sign that paper that locks you in

I had a full AFROTC scholarship to any college I wanted but once it came time forthem to actually pay for something I got a letter in the mail saying my scholarship was revoked because they had evidence I had a headache four years before (the doctor, who also happened to be a Naval officer noted that it was NOT a migraine or any other serious or recurring problem) once I was moved in, had already gotten into classes and was ready to show up for AFROTC they decided they no longer wanted to pay for anything. I spent 6 years in the Civil Air Patrol and I can't count how many times I've seen active duty military and volunteers get lied to and screwed over so the USAF could do things the way they wanted.

I worked for most of my teenage life to get to the point where I could serve my country in the AF and put everything I had into it and I still believe it is an honorable goal, but you should know that what they want comes first no matter what. They'll say anything to get you in but once your locked in, they become much less open to what you want and will tell you straight up that you are at their mercy.


I hate to sound bitter, but they did screw me over pretty good with the whole thing. I could have accpeted other scholarships and worked out some other opportunities to pay for college had they not waited until classes had already started to let me know they changed their mind about my scholarship (I had taken the DODMERB like 4 months before classes started so its not like they didn't have the information in time). Instead of a full scholarship, all I had was a $250 per semester engineering scholarship and my parents were given about a weeks notice before they had to suddenly pay for my first semester. Thats generally something people like to have a plan for, but I almost had to drop out because of this little screw up.

I will say that them deciding at the last minute to drop my scholarship had a huge effect on my entire life. Losing this scholarship because of a "medical issue" meant that I would have a "stain" on my record if I continued to go into the military. My goal had been to get into pilot training, so this "stain" on my record meant an automatic disqualification for my chosen field and again, it wasn't a medical problem, but instead it was an excuse so the military didn't have to pay for my college (several AFROTC officials implied that they will quite often disqualify good candidates for random reasons to avoid paying scholarships). So to savea few $$$, the career I had worked for since I was about 10 years old and madecountless sacrifices to achieve was suddenly not an option because the military wanted an excuse to not pay for my education.

I had no backup plan because, quite honestly I was excelent at all things military related. I had spent 6+ years in the Civil Air Patrol leading as a squadron commander, serving on countless ground teams (search and rescue), training with the USAF Honor Guard, and mastering skills better than 99% of the actual USAF officers. So then, all of a sudden, I was stuck paying for college wth no plan at all. My chosen major was Aerospace Engineering because that would be helpful for getting into pilot training and for future aviation related careers in the military, but obviously I had no reason to pursue that field since that entire career path was now completely out. I wound up dropping out of college after a year due to lack of motivation or any kind of plan or goal. I moved back home to pursue motorcycle racing for a while and am now finished doing that for a year.
I'm about to move down to Daytona, FL to atten

 

woah my computer went nuts sorry